Queenstown!!

Well hello. So I'm still terrible at posting on here but I have a slight break in the assignments that I need to complete so I'm gonna skip about 8 weeks from where I left off and jump to our lecture recess. I keep getting confused in my mind it's spring break even though it's actually fall here. So I guess it's really fall break...that's not really important though. Anyway I went to Queenstown, New  Zealand! It was awesome and incredibly beautiful.

Day 1
My flight was at 5 AM. I was lucky to find that a couple of other girls that had the same flight as me and they had found a wonderfully nice person to drive them to the airport at 3 in the morning. So I had a wonderful human being drive me to the airport at a time that nobody is supposed to be awake at. We got to the airport and they got their tickets to Brisbane and I went to use the kiosk thing that they had used to get my tickets to Brisbane and then Queenstown but because I had an international break it didn't work. I had to go to the counter, but there wasn't anybody at the counter yet so I asked the security people when they'd open and it wasn't for another 30 minutes or something. So the other two girls were nice and waited with me. Once they opened I got my tickets and we went to security. There was nobody in the line so we were the only ones going through and they had nice signs saying that they wanted you to take out aerosols and umbrellas, but no lotions which was weird. Anyway we walked through and I was part of a random check which was weird. The security lady took a weird stick with a circle at the end of it stuck it in random places in my backpack that was stuffed with a bunch of stuff and then tested it or something. I don't know. All I know is that she did her thing and then said I was good to go so I left and we found our terminal which wasn't very far away. I got some breakfast before my flight and then got onto the plane.

New Zealand from the plane

The plane was pretty much empty which was really cool! The flight attendants were still strict about you sitting in your seat so that the plane was balanced for take off. The two seats next to me were completely empty which was awesome. When the plane was in the air a lady took the aisle seat and slept which was fine I didn't really need all three seats but it would have been cool to try and lay on the seats and see what happens. Once we got to Brisbane I said farewell to the two other girls and then found my way to the international airport via bus. Finding it went surprisingly smoothly and I found my flight to Queenstown. My flight this time was full which was lame but whatever. I was next to this guy and his dad I think. I didn't actually talk to them but I'm pretty sure they were related somehow. He kept bumping me every once in a while which was awkward because I was trying to do my whole "look out the window and pretend to sleep so the person next to me doesn't try to talk to me" routine. It worked for the most part except for one awkward moment where he bumped me and I looked at him and we made eye contact he apologized and I just felt awkward because I wished I hadn't looked at him.

When we landed I was super excited already because I could see New Zealand from the plane and it looked awesome! Once we landed I was amazed at the scenery at the airport. I think the person I was talking to in customs could tell I was excited because I kept moving back and forth and was talking rather fast when answering her questions about what I was going to do. I was really excited. While waiting in line for customs there was this older guy that sat on the floor in front of one of the rooms that I think you declare stuff in and one of the security people said he needed to move. That was probably the main entertainment I had while waiting in the line was watching this man and the security guy have a misunderstanding and confusion happening.

Once I got through customs and everything else I got money from an ATM and found where I was supposed to wait for the bus to get into town. The only downside was that the bus cost $12!! Even if it's in New Zealand dollars that seems like a lot but I didn't really have a choice in the matter. I got to the town and immediately had a sense of loss. Don't panic. It wasn't like I was freaking out and panicking I actually kind of laughed. I just struggled to figure out which direction I was supposed to walk at first in order to get to my hostel. I actually only walked the wrong direction for a few steps and then went the correct direction and then found my hostel almost immediately. I was quite proud of myself. I checked into my room which I had made sure I had my own room. Then it was time for dinner where I found a food court and had some teriyaki chicken noodle thing which was beautiful because the stupid flights didn't give me any food (they gave food to the two guys next to me though...). Then I nice night in to get myself for the rest of the trip.

Day 2
My alarm didn't go off. Luckily I woke up before I had to check out but I had my alarm set to go off at 8 on the weekdays but today was Saturday and I didn't realize that the night before. Oh well. I knew where I had to go and I didn't have anything scheduled for that day. I found my other hostel and shoved my bag in their closet and then went for a walk around their botanic garden and the side of the lake. Then I got lunch and explored the other side of the lake. It was time for dinner and checked into my room which ended up being me and five guys for the whole time I was at that hostel. That was a little bit strange and awkward. After I checked in I went to the main shoreline and waited for the sunset. Then back to the hostel.

I like the seagulls at the bottom ;)

Day 3
I had a tour to Milford Sound which was really pretty and the weather was really nice. The bus ride there took all morning but we had a few stops at different places. One was at Mirror Lake (I think that's what it's called) and we went through a bunch of mountains that had glaciers. Our tour guide was pretty cool and knew a ton of information (which is probably why he's a good tour guide). Apparently he was a double for Boromir in a running scene where he ran in the woods for like 500 meters and got paid for it. I don't know if he was in that one or not but he also talked the people making the movie needing people that knew how to canoe for the scene where they are canoeing down the river.

Mirror Lake I believe.

Milford Sound

There's a rainbow

Once we got to the lake we took a tour on the lake. The lake was beautiful and after it rains there are a ton waterfalls on the cliffs. Unfortunately I didn't get to see that but there were still plenty of waterfalls that I got to see. One of them had a rainbow showing off of it which was really cool. They just finished filming Prometheus 2 there so now people are going to associate it with aliens and horror nonsense but I saw it before the movie came out so there. I actually might have to watch the movie just to see the lake again.

For the most part I walked alone but I met some other girls that I would talk to every once in a while and ate with. The tour didn't pay for any of our meals so I had to buy my own but at least they stopped at places for us to get food at. I don't think I mentioned this before but the tour group I thought I was going with was basically not a tour group. I guess it was more like a travel agent that just set everything up for me so I tried to meet new people everyday which can be a struggle.  Anyway that's not important. After the boat ride it was back to Queenstown. In the bus they played a New Zealand movie called Whale Rider. It was pretty interesting. We finally got back to town and I went back and went to bed.

Day 4
This day was pretty relaxed. I had the Shotover jet in the morning. So I was on a boat that went like 85 mph weaving through a canyon and doing spins at high speeds. It was only 25 minutes which is kind of lame because I would enjoy to do it for at least an hour. At least. It was still loads of fun though. I couldn't bring a camera with me unless it was a go pro strapped to your head. They insisted that when they spun you had to hold onto the bar in front of you but they really just want you to hold on the whole time. The bar is heated too! What?! So cool! and they had towels that you could wipe your hands with if they get wet. Which they did. The people sitting behind me were screaming so much it was awesome. Ah! It was so much fun. =)

Wild goat

I met a girl there that I had lunch with after the shotover jet. She missed her tour and so she was waiting for her tour to come back to the hotel they were staying at. After lunch I went up the Gondola. I went to the main spots and then decided to go on a hike that was at the top of the hill. At first I wasn't really sure how long the hike was or even where it was going but there was a path so I decided to follow it. After I was about half an hour in then there was finally a sign saying how far different destinations were which the closest one was an hour and a half away. I wish I knew that before. I didn't really want to go back yet because I still had a ton of time and not much else to do. So I just kept walking. I was going to see if I could get to the one destination that was super close but then I got distracted by goats. That's right. Goats. I found wild goats and it was really exciting.

After my hike I walked back to where the main gondola area was and waited for the sunset. It wasn't that exciting but it was still nice. Then I went back down the gondola and met up with the girl from before and waited with her for her tour group because I'm nice like that. Then I went back to the hostel.

Day 5
I had the morning off so I met up with the girl from before and we went to a couple of art galleries and then looked at some souvenir shops. I had a canyoning trip in the afternoon which was really fun. There were only three other girls that were on the trip with us. Our tour guides were pretty cool too. One of them was Japanese so he didn't speak the best English but he was still awesome. Apparently he goes between Japan and New Zealand for work with the change of the seasons which is super cool to me. So canyoning. Basically you play around in a canyon. We rappelled, cliff jumped, zip-lined, and slid down in the rocks. It was super fun! I couldn't bring a camera unless it was a go pro strapped to my head again though.

We started out riding some zip-lines through the forest and canyon. Then we rappelled down the canyon wall and into the actual canyon. We had been told that there are different kinds of jumps depending on the depth of the water. So with deep water it was a pencil jump where you keep your legs underneath you with a slight bend. In medium water you jump into the water and land with your legs in front of you like you're sitting with your legs up. With a shallow water you do a superman jump. Yep. You had to jump head first and land on your stomach. We only had one of those. We rappelled a couple of times and did quite a few jumps which was fun. I really enjoyed when we slid and floated along with the river dodging rocks on the side as you go along. I didn't have to dodge too much because of how small I am so that could be why it was one of my favorite things to do. There was one part where we zip-lined and stopped in the air above the water where we had complete control and had to do everything ourselves. Basically we just had to rappel without a wall and just kind of fall into the water. That was fine. The girl before me though got her hair caught in the rope or some mechanism and ended up ripping the ends of her hair off so that she could get down.

I almost forgot about the suits they made us wear! They were so ridiculously tight. When they were trying to figure out what size to give me they started with thinking that I'm a small and then deciding that I'm a 0?? Which is not true but it was the smallest size they had I think and it was so tight. I struggled so much trying to put that stupid thing on and then when I got it on I felt like a stiff snowman that couldn't move. Like I was in a body suit! ...well I guess I technically was. I couldn't even zip up the little shoes they gave us all the way because my calves are too wide. The reason we had the suit was for all the gear we had for zip-lining and other rope stuff and then to keep us warm because that water was cold! There was one point where my hands were numb and I didn't realize it till I saw a sandfly on my hand chased it off and my hand continued to bleed. I didn't even feel the sandfly bite me which normally you do.

Ice statue at the ice bar

After that I got dinner but I don't remember where. In the evening I was signed up for a bar crawl. The main reasons I went was because I paid for it and because there was an ice bar involved. It was super cool. It was like 23 degrees F (I don't want to spell the whole word sorry) so not terrible. They gave us a coat to wear. I was kinda sad because I thought they were going to give us an eskimo hat but they didn't! and the jacket they gave us didn't even have pockets! They gave us some cheap gloves as well that I didn't where when taking pictures with my phone. It's called an ice bar because everything is made of glass. Everything! The glasses were made of glass. What you could sit on was made of glass. There were statues made of glass. Once you were done with your drink they gave you a drink you could throw and break your ice glass against a designated area of the wall. It was pretty cool. Literally and figuratively! ...I didn't mean to do that.

The bar crawl itself was better than I thought it would be. I got there kind of early and signed in. Which, quick derailment, was a struggle. Every time I checked into something the people there were a bit lost. I would say what company I came with and some of them would be confused others wouldn't but they would always ask me if I had a voucher or not. If they didn't do that then they would end up having to call someone to confirm that I was supposed to be there and that I paid for it. So they always figured it out but there was always a moment before every activity I had that I questioned whether I was at the right spot or not. Anyway since I got there early I was sitting at a random table awkwardly on my lonesome. These two girls ended up joining me which was nice and then another guy joined us so we had a nice little foursome group happening. We met a couple of other people at the second bar and started talking politics. Of course. Sigh. The ice bar was the third bar we went to. At the last bar (number 5) it was definitely more of a party bar with a dancing area that was just a mob of people. I lost the people I went with before I even entered the mob so I decided to stay away from the mob. I mean really. I wouldn't be able to find anybody because I'm so short not to mention I would probably get lost in the mob and never find my way out. So I found the water and had three glasses of water. That's right water because I like my brain cells...I don't know. While drinking my third glass of water one of the guys with the crawl saw me and asked what I was drinking. When I told him I was drinking water he responded with "You would". I laughed because it's true but was thinking the whole time "You've known me for like two hours and talked to me for like 30 how the heck would you know that". After drinking my water I went back to the hostel and went to bed. Although falling asleep was a bit of a struggle for some reason. Maybe that happens when you drink. I don't know. I only had the weak shots that I apparently got with the crawl.

Day 6
I had to check out of my current hostel this day and go back to the first hostel I was staying at. When I was making reservations for my rooms I thought that I was booking it at the same hostel but I was wrong. Luckily they were really close together. Actually the town was pretty small so I was pretty familiar with it after a day which I was super proud of myself for. Anyway I checked out and shoved my bag in the storage shed of the other hostel. I couldn't check in yet.

After that I went to check to see if the tour that I had originally planned on doing was still going to happen or not. So this is a bit of a fun story. I signed up for this tour online and was the only person that signed up for it. I repeatedly talked to them to see if anybody else signed up for the tour which in my mind it was obviously their best tour. It was a 4x4 tour with the highest amount of 4x4 driving they had, not to mention that it had the highest amount of Lord of the Rings sights as well. Well I went in the morning again to see if even one more person had signed up for it but nobody had. Rude. They had another tour happening at the same time and it was basically the same it just went in a different direction and didn't have as much 4x4 driving but at that point I just wanted to go on a tour. That was the whole reason I wasn't leaving New Zealand today so heck yeah I was going to do a tour. Anyway I ended up going on the other tour which was still amazing. Probably one of my favorite parts because I'm such a nerd and the scenery was beautiful and I couldn't have asked for a better day.

So my tour was in the afternoon and I needed to eat before that. I met up with the girl I met previously again and we went to Fergburger which always has a massive line. We went super early expecting to wait forever in the line but when we got there the line wasn't too bad. So we got a fergburger and fries. The fries were awesome and the burger was massive but it was a good meal. I don't know if it's the best burger I've ever had but it wasn't disgusting which is what really matters. After that we went to her hotel room to charge some cameras and then went our separate ways. She had Lord of the Rings tours too but it was different which in my opinion (because I'm biased) wasn't as exciting as mine. Anyway I went to the tour!

There were four older guys that I think were a family. They said they left the girls in town to shop while they did something fun...that was weird to me. There were also two Chinese people that were with the group, and then there was me. The tour guide was awesome. He asked as we started the tour if we were Lord of the Rings fans. I kinda nodded because I enjoyed it and knew some stuff about it but also knew that there were tons of people that were a whole lot crazier than I was. So after most people nodded he told us about all the crazy fans he had that could speak the two elven languages and a lady that had surgery on her ears so she had elf ears (an American of course...). Then he asked if we were fans and everybody was pretty much like "yeah...no, apparently not". So we went to all sorts of places we went to the Lothlorien forest, where Beorn's house is, where swamp areas were filmed, Isengard, all sorts of places. It was so awesome and he showed us all the scenes of Lord of the Rings and other movies on an iPad. I saw a clip in Wolverine where they messed up because they drove on the wrong side of the road in New Zealand so there was an arrow on the road pointing the wrong direction from what it should have been for the movie. It was awesome. The car in the Wolverine had a Lord of the Rings sticker on it too which was awesome. We went through the town of Glenorchy, that's the direction we went. I don't really have very many more words for how awesome it was so I'll just post a bunch of pictures. Also beware that if you watch Lord of the Rings with me know you may get a bunch of "I was there!" or "I saw that!" while watching it. Fun facts may also be shared. :-P

:O

Lothlorien forest XD

Sorry! Ignore my stupid finger! I just still really like it!

Once I got back from the tour I quickly checked into my room again. It was actually the exact same room I was in the first night which was nice because I knew exactly where it was. After checking in I went to watch a movie because, well, I didn't have anything better to do. The girl I met was going to join me if she could but her tour lasted longer so she didn't get to join me at the movie. I saw the Jung Book which was very enjoyable. Once the movie was done I went back to my room and figured out everything I needed to know for my journey back to Australia before going to bed.

Day 7
The day to leave had finally arrived. NOOOOOOOO!!!!!!! I know. My flight was in the afternoon but I had to check out so after getting breakfast quickly I left at around 9. I found the bus easily and got on it and I didn't have to pay! I don't know what happened but when I started talking to the bus driver he just waved me on so I just sat down and didn't have to pay again. That was really nice considering I thought I was going to have to spend 12 dollars again so the fact that I didn't made me so happy. I got to the airport and I was super early. Like almost 3 hours early. So I ended up waiting for a really long time but it was better than being late and missing my flight and being stuck in New Zealand ...probably.

Anyway I got my first flight and it was non-eventful I sat next to these two other girls and we pretty much had the same attitude of "I'm glad you're not huge so you wont take up some of my space but you just stay there and I will sleep in my seat". Actually, I didn't sleep. I think I read something on my phone or something. Then I got to the Auckland airport and had to figure out how to get to the international airport. I got a little lost and went to far when trying to find the bus but I figured it out pretty quickly and found the bus. Once I got there and through security I tried to figure out what gate to wait at since I'm used to chilling at the gate for hours not in some random sitting place. Well all the signs and whatnot didn't tell me what gate to go to until like 20 minutes before they started seating. Which was weird. So when I got there they signs said "Relax" and I just thought "what does that mean?". Was I supposed to find a nap room. What? I don't understand. So I got food because I was hungry and hadn't had lunch yet. So I ate waiting for the sign to change where all the food places were and charged my phone because I kind of killed it on the previous flight. Then the signs said the gate will be announce in an hour and then counted down from that point on. So I kept waiting for the stupid sign to tell me where I was supposed to go. Honestly, I think that was more stressful than know what gate to go to begin with and just waiting there. So they're whole "Relax" thing didn't really work it just stressed me out. The sign finally told me where to go and I practically sprinted there.

There weren't very many people waiting so I had a pretty empty flight again. There was a girl that had the aisle seat while I was in the window seat and she pretty much took up the whole middle seat as well with all her stuff. Normally I wouldn't really care because I wasn't going to use it anyway but she was sick. So she was spreading her sick germs into the small safety zone I had and guess what. I got sick. I blame her. The flight was to somewhere in Malaysia so they had a stop in Cairns and then would continue on. They showed the new Star Wars movie on the plane so I watched that but at first it was dubbed in an Asian language which was really interesting until I changed it so it was in English again. The only problem was that my arm control thing seemed to be weird because the sound was so loud no matter how much I tried to turn the volume down so I ended up having my earbuds not in my ears but hanging off my ear and listening so I wouldn't be deaf after the flight. The gave me food on this flight too which was super nice of them! I wasn't expecting that at all.

I finally landed back in Australia and had to figure out where I had to go to find my ride. I started going the wrong direction but a parking person (I think) started yelling at me. I think I was going to an area that was for employees only but I didn't know that because there were no signs. Once I figured out that she was yelling to get my attention I went and talked to her and she directed me in the right direction to go telling me to follow lines on the floor and all sorts of stuff but I found it and got in the bus and ended up back at the lodge once again safe and sound and tired. So I went to bed.

O Week

Ahhh!!! I'm sorry! School started and then my brain would always be like "well if I have time to blog I have time to do homework" and then neither one would happen... I think I have a better grasp of time management now but who knows if that will still be the case tomorrow.

So O Week was the next week which is also known as orientation week but it's shortened to O week. I've very quickly realized that Australians tend to shorten everything which is both nice because I like it but also really confusing because I don't know what they're saying. It doesn't help that sometimes they talk really quickly too. Anyway that's not the point. O week. Basically it's set up for first years to learn about how to survive university. Well as an international student we figured this would probably be good for us too. They also had different events happening as well.

Monday
They had a specific class like thing specific for whether you were going into science, liberal arts, and whatever else you were studying. So I went to that all morning with almost everybody I had met so far because we all seem to be in science. It was really good because we were able to meet the mentors that are students in our field and we can ask them for help if we so desire. Then we met a few of the professors that could be teaching some of our classes which I think I actually met one of mine during that time. We met both lecture professors and the lab coordinator. That lasted most of the morning so they gave us pizza afterwords. We struggled a bit to get pizza at first because we had to wait for the mentors to give them to us at our table and our mentor never gave us one! So we had to go up to them and ask for one which was silly. Then we were going to leave but didn't really have anything to do at that time so we went back and sat down at a table again and then mentors from another group that was now having lunch gave us two pizzas! It was great but we didn't know what to do with them. I think we just left them there and left. After that we went and got our student IDs and a bus pass so that we don't have to pay as much using the bus. The bus is expensive! It will be interesting to see how much I spent on the bus by the end of the semester.

Tuesday

At the botanic gardens =)

Pretty sure I slept in and laid in bed most of the morning. There were more informational sessions that I could have attended but I didn't feel the need to go any of them. In the afternoon they had a tour of Cairns where they got a double decker bus that we rode around town in while they told us where things were. Naturally we went to sit at the top of the bus despite being told that the sun is a lot stronger here than anywhere else (this is a constant theme). We stopped at the botanic gardens and spent about an hour there before we left. It was really pretty as botanical gardens are. Lots of cool flowers and there were signs that explained a lot about how they are used for medicine. Then we got back on the bus to go back. I didn't go to the top of the bus this time because I figured I had been in the sun long enough and I'm not a huge fan of getting sun burnt and getting skin cancer isn't on my bucket list. They had a movie night too and originally we planned on going but it started when dinner at the lodge is so we had dinner and then by the time we were ready to go we figured we had already missed most of the movie and it wasn't worth it so we probably just hung out. Maybe that's when I wrote my first few posts.

Wednesday
This was a long day. We went to get pancakes from the Red Frogs (a Christian group) in the morning and had some half backed pancakes that were slightly unsatisfying but it was free food so I guess I can't complain too much. Then I had to go to the international studies orientation that I originally missed because I was in Byron Bay. They said basically the same stuff that I had already heard before but it was good to get reminded I guess. During lunch they had market day which is where all the clubs set up a table and advertise what they do and stuff. They didn't have as many clubs as I was hoping they would and the clubs sometimes seemed more like an organization ran them then students but that was just what it seemed like to me. I signed up for information for a few of them but I haven't gotten very much information on them still so I guess that didn't work that well. I remember a guy coming up to us at one point and giving us a flyer about a martial arts club (I can't remember exactly which martial arts it was). I was interested and asked a question about where it is and instead of saying where it is he gave me an answer about how they want women who had a bad experience with a man join so they can kind of rehabilitate them (my wording may be terrible on that sorry). Now I think it's great that they want to do that and that it is one of the goals of the club but at the same time I got this feeling at the same time that he didn't want me to join unless that was the case. Which was rather rude because I was really interested and then he just kind of ruined my interest by kind of pushing me away.

After that we hung out till the party of the night occurred. They had a tropical themed party planned where they had a DJ, entertainment, and of course food. I had some ice cream and a snow cone which was probably my favorite part. After the party at the school we got on a party bus and went to a bar. We started at one called Lyquids which was pretty fancy. It was still pretty early in the night so we were the only ones there (this includes everybody on the party bus). With my friends accompanying and ordering for me we got the weakest shot one can get which also happens to be the cheapest (hurray!). It wasn't bad but I don't think I ever want to have more alcohol than that, especially in a public place. After that we danced a bit (me very awkwardly) and then ended up being the last people there. So we left and found a different bar called Woolshed which is a backpackers bar. We stayed there for a long time (longer than I would have preferred). We danced some (a lot) and after a while I was just done. You have to realize that I had been doing stuff nonstop for over a week and my feet needed a good rest still so they hated me and hurt a bunch so I found a random stool and sat next to my circle of friends that continued to dance. It was an interesting experience at this bar because a guy came into our circle of times and would grab one of the girls awkwardly dance with them spin them and then the girl would swiftly make an escape. I'm just glad he didn't try to dance with me because I have no idea how I would have responded. Eventually I went to get some air and since it was cooler outside than inside the bar (which is saying a lot) I decided I would stay there for the whole time. One of my friends joined me outside and then another joined me. Eventually we left but we had to get a taxi because we missed the last bus. Then bed and happiness.

Thursday
I don't think we really had anything planned and didn't need to go to any of the sessions they had so we may have gone to buy some things at the closest shopping center. In the afternoon the school had a scavenger hunt set up and me and one of my roommates went to do it but it wasn't exactly what we were expecting. The items on the list were kind of weird and we didn't really want to do it after getting the clipboard with the list on it so we left the clipboard on a picnic table outside the building where they had organized it. On the way back to the lodge (which is where we are residing) these people clearly doing the scavenger hunt tried to complete the task of "taking a selfie with someone without them noticing" with us. He was so obvious about it though! He started walking backwards and was clearly taking a selfie. So I pointed it out because he really could have done so much better. I said he could still use it but I'm pretty sure even in the picture you can tell that we knew what he was doing. Pretty sure we just chilled after that too. There wasn't that much going on that day.

Friday

Sadness :'(

We went to a lot of sessions in the morning because we figured they would be useful. They were pretty much how to survive in university and the resources available which we had already heard about a lot but it did clear up some confusion that we had so it was worthwhile. In the afternoon the student association (which is the group of students that organize all the fun things that have been happening on campus) had organized a trip to Palm Cove, a beach. So we took the double decker bus to the beach again. Once we got to the beach it was pretty unfortunate because we couldn't actually swim because of the irukandji. We couldn't even swim in the netted area which was rude. So we sat on the beach and put sunscreen on (because the sun is stronger here than anywhere else) and the student leader made sure we had sunscreen eventually. We really only stayed on the beach until they brought us food. Once we ate or food we left the beach to explore the shops that were by it.

The beach at Palm Cove

We got gelato which was nice and refreshing considering it was really hot. We went into a couple of shops with gelato in hand and then we needed somewhere to throw our cups away but we couldn't find any trashcans (or bins as the say in Australia)! So one girl went up to these people working at a hotel lobby area and asked if she throw her trash away there and the lady just took her trash. So we all did that same. Since we were already in the hotel (which was confusing to me because we never went through a doorway) we ended up going to their pool area. At first I thought we were just going to look at it but we ended up going in. Then I thought we would just sit at the edge of the pool but me and this other girl ended up going into the pool because it was hot and the pool wasn't crowded and why not. So we did and it was really nice. The pool was super nice too! It was like a makeshift beach with sand and everything. Eventually another girl joined us in the pool and we ended up just goofing around in the pool. It was really nice and since we aren't as loud as the other American international students the people working there either didn't care or didn't notice. Eventually we left because we had to get back on the bus and I don't remember what we did in the evening.

Well that's my quick update. Hopefully I will catch up quickly since actual school started shortly after this week and I will really only need to talk about the weekend when I did something exciting.

Starting Again?

Well hello there people of the internet! Think about if people of the internet are their own species...that would be interesting...what would that be called? Homo Internetio...whats internet in latin? Hang on...need to google. Cue jeopardy music. Oh wait. The internet wasn't around when Latin was, was it? Um well now I'm rather confused. Answers.com says that net in latin is rete or retium but that sounds too much like part of the eye ball to me. Then they also said they have seen interete and interetium.You pick what you think it would be and tell me!

Wow. That was a weird tangent that I didn't mean to go off on. Welcome back to this blog that has terrible grammar, makes no sense, and has random tangents. I hope you enjoy.

Anyway...I was going to blog a lot more than I did during college. I had all these plans and ideas and then I got distracted by college life and don't remember anything I was going to say. So ignore anything I said I was going to talk to you about...unless you really want me to talk about it, in which case you should yell at me in the comments to talk about it. So yeah. Sorry for my inconsistency. I'm not going to make any promises that I will post more regularly but apparently I'm incredibly bad at those promises so I'm not going to do that. I will however post when I'm bored. Like right now...

So the point of this post is 1) to say I'm back and sorry for being so irregular but it probably won't change and 2) to ask how you would feel if I attempted to right random short stories here. I used to right random short stories in high school on my friends/families phone. It was really fun and since it was on a phone it could be short and didn't need to make any sense. I used to be writing a book until I stopped because I realized how terrible I am at writing (apparently that didn't stop me from making a blog though). But! I could still write some short stories and practice writing because even though I'm terrible at it I find it rather enjoyable. If I can find some of my short stories I can share them with you and stuff. I don't know. So yeah. I might do that.

Stay classy and don't forget that you are awesome. Yeah that was kinda lame. My bad.

In the Future: ...I don't know!

Quick Update

Hello there everyone! I realize I haven't posted anything in two weeks. I apologize for that but college started. Two weeks ago I was moving into the dorm and then last week was labor day and I just didn't feel like posting anything. Sorry.

Anyway I shall try to continue to post weekly but if I miss a week please don't kill me. I think I'm going to move my normal posting days to Saturday because I tend to end up waiting on people to wake up so that we can go get breakfast together. So posts on Saturdays not Fridays!

There will be an actual post about college coming too. I will probably post it next week since I will have experienced everything I'm going to be doing by then. If something new is added I will let you know!

Stay classy and don't forget to enjoy the adventure of life! You never know what is going to happen so take it one day at a time! Look for a post tomorrow!

In the Future: Fangirling, College Observations, and of course the history of Nail Polish (goodness when am I actually going to talk about these things?!)

Favorite Characters

I have a major issue when it comes to choosing my favorite characters. A few years ago it was a huge crisis. Every single one of my favorite characters died, was evil, turned evil, was evil and died, and many other combinations that I doubt you even thought were possible! It really is my fault because I refuse to let my favorite character be a main character mainly because they don't die and what's the fun without some risk right? That's probably why they all die.

I won't bore you with all the different ways my favorite characters have died I will just share two of the worst one's with you (funny to you but worst to me). Anyway onto the stories!

Bryce Larkin = my favorite character

To start things off have you ever seen the show Chuck? It was my favorite show for the five seasons it was on air. Anyway my favorite character was this guy named Bryce Larkin played by Matthew Bomer. Anyway he was the main characters roommate in College. Anyway he gave Chuck (the main character) the "Intersect" which pretty much changed his life forever. Anyway when he sent the Intersect to Chuck I was under the assumption that he died. Then he was miraculously brought back to life by some magical new form of medicine. So that was really exciting for me because I was really happy he was alive and hoped I would see more of him. Then it turns out he is one of the bad guys. That really bums me out but I get over it because I figure I will see more of him and it will be really exciting none the less. Then Chuck shoots him and he dies. Yep. That made me sad. The end of another one of my favorite characters. To sum up: he died, he came back, he turned evil, he died again. 

Chadder the Chipmunk 

Next story! This one is extremely pathetic, just so you know. Anyway I would help out with VBS (Vacation Bible School) at my church by helping my father show the Chadder the Chipmunk videos they would always show. Well this time the video was sea related. So there was a boat with a skipper and the second mate. The second mate (if that's really what he's called) had a mop. The mop was really cool. It would be wearing goggles and hats and whatever else was needed for the scene. It was just awesome. Well eventually the wheel for the ship broke. Do you see what's coming? The only way to save them was to fix the steering wheel. So...the second mate broke the mop in half. Yes. My favorite character, A MOP, died. Pathetic. The was the lowest point of my favorite character crisis. 

My favorite characters go through a lot. Believe it or not that's not even the worst thing that's happened to them. I have had a favorite character die at least twice and still isn't dead. So there you go. If you have any terrible favorite character stories or want to hear more of mine let me know! Stay classy and remember that it's okay if your favorite character dies, it just means they are awesome. 

P.S. Why do all the cool people die?! What the heck!

In the future: Fangirling, History of Nail Polish, and a Random Post! Well, that should be interesting.

Bracelets :)

I make bracelets. I might have mentioned that in my very first post but I don't know how many of you actually know that. They aren't super fancy. They are really just a bunch of strings tied in a bunch of knots. They are more of friendship bracelet I guess. I make patterns and some with some neat pictures.

Now I shall show you some of them (sorry if the picture aren't the best).

 Those are regular pattern friendship bracelets. They are the ones I tend to stick to just because you can memorize the pattern and don't have to have the design with you all the time. It can be harder to find a pattern with exactly what you want especially if it has a TV show theme or something like that.

This is a alpha pattern bracelet. They take longer than the normal pattern friendship bracelet and tend to use more string. You can pretty much make one of these as long as you have a grid picture of what you want. I don't do these ones as much. I want to but once I start making one it tends to take longer and then I go to doing regular pattern ones again.

These are kumihimo bracelets. You need a kumihimo disk (if you want to know what it looks like just search it in Google images) to make these ones. For these I feel like the patterns are can be a lot of the same so I don't make many of those either. 

I also make key chains! It tends to be easier to make a key chain with an alpha pattern but a regular pattern would work too. Sometimes with the alpha patterns they are either too short or too long. It's okay if its to short because you can just add more rows. If it's too long...you can't really fix that. Plus they can be rather wide. But they are still worth making because you can just use it as a bookmark. Or if you glue on a magnet to the back of it you can use it as a magnet. 

Okay, now I'm going to rant a little bit. A while back I saw one style of bracelets in particular that was being sold in stores (yes, the ones to the right). Then I figured out how to make it. They use a different kind of string but if I had that string I could make the exact same thing. Now I'm seeing regular chevron pattern bracelets being sold. Seriously? That is so lame! You can buy a like nine feet of string for 30 cents and you can make that same bracelet. I don't know why this bugs me so much. It's probably because I know how easy it is to make those. You can make cooler bracelets than what is being sold at the stores and you would probably save money (depending on how large you made your bracelet). You could make two of the bracelets in my first picture for the same bracelet at the store. Okay, this may seem silly to you but it really does bug me. Rant over.

How do I find the patterns and what not? Well I found two websites that have thousands of designs for each style on them (friendship-bracelets.net and braceletbook.com in case you were wondering). They also have tutorials. So if you are bored watching TV you can make bracelets while watching you favorite TV show (that's what I do). 

I have made some cooler designs (especially in the alpha pattern) but I gave those to my friends. They are a great way to show your appreciation to your friends.

I hope this was somewhat interesting and gave you an idea of something to do if you are really bored over the summer. Stay classy and don't forget to have fun this summer! 

Mosquito Cat

Hello everyone! I'm back from vacation and I'm going to give a quick update about stuff...

In my last post I told you that my cat got injured again. Well we took him to the vet and they shaved his stomach so that that could actually see what happened. Well he ended up having two scratches about 4 inches long. We think it came from a fence...no idea how that happened. So they glued him back together (wow that sounds strange...) and then gave him an antibiotic shot because we were leaving for vacation.

Vacation was a lot of fun. We played a TON of minigolf. On average we played 3 or 4 rounds each day. We were kinda disappointed with the souvenir shops because there weren't really any that we were used to only a bunch of bargain beachwear stores. Oh my goodness. They really like the neon colors. It was awesome! I wanted to buy so many of their tank tops because they were bright and pretty and really soft but they always had a print on it that I didn't want. If they didn't have a print they wanted you to put one on it so I only bought one without a print.

They were small but there were a million.

On the last day we came back we went to a Cyprus Garden. It was really nice and we went on a canoe ride thing in a swamp and that was really cool. We saw lots of alligators too. Once the canoe ride was over we just started walking through the garden. It was nice but it would have been better if I hadn't gotten 25+ mosquito bites in an hour. It was awful. Everywhere itched at the same time and I just wanted to jump into a pool to make it stop. I had a ring of mosquito bites around my thighs right below where my shorts ended. Absolutely ridiculous. I also had six on each of my elbows which I think is one of the worst places to get them.



Hopefully the post next week will be a little more interesting for you. I don't know. Stay classy and don't forget to were bug spray when going into a swamp.

Mind Explosion

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

"Um...are you okay?"

"What? Oh yeah. I'm just studying right now. Well sort of. I can't really focus. There are so many things going on right now."

"Um, do you think maybe you could focus. I kinda really need you to focus right now."

"Um. Maybe. I'll try."

That is the current conversation with my mind on a daily basis right now. What am I talking about? Well there are so many things I need to do right now that I can't seem focus on any one item. I have to study for AP tests which are coming up. I have school in general going on. There are people being annoying. There are my cats that won't leave me alone. And then there is YouTube and Facebook and really just the internet in general.

At the moment I really need to study for AP Biology. I got this review book thing that you read through and it reminds you of all the information you have forgotten. I haven't actually started reading it yet though... I mean I looked at the first section and it just looks so gross! I mean really gross and boring. How the heck am I supposed to focus on reading that stuff?! I start reading and then I think about if I actually have homework in that class or I wonder what fun thing I could make. Instead of writing a super long paragraph of what is going through my mind (which is a lot at the same time) I will just write the thoughts that are going on:

Study, Thirsty, YouTube, New Song, Cat, Cat Video, Focus! Study!, Classical Conditioning, Bored, What Was That Noise, Study, Hungry, Candy? No, Study, Boooooorrrrrreeeeeedddddd, I Can Do This, Study, No I Can't, Be Positive, Understand What You're Reading, It's too haaarrrrdddd!, Don't Be a Wimp!, I'm Not!, Gosh dang it! What was that word? It was in bold print which must means its important, Thirsty, Dying, I need a break, Not Yet!, Ooooh Facebook Notification, No! Study!, Eye's hurt!, Focus, Hmm What Should I Blog About, Oh Hey! I finished the Paragraph...Wait...What was it about?, Ah Man! Now I Have to Read it All Over Again!

Well that's about it. I have nothing important to talk to you about today. Sorry I missed a Friday (I doubt you even noticed) but that's why I'm posting this today. I plan on writing a rather serious blog on Friday...maybe. We'll see how serious it really is. It will be about friendship because recently (actually all semester) I have been extremely annoyed with people and how they interact with their friends. So yeah, if you're interested in that you can read that. 

Speaking of friends my friend told me this so I thought I'd share it with you: YODO. You only die once. So you better make it count. I don't know if that is really all that funny to you but I found it rather humorous. Anyway stay classy and remember to keep you're mind on track, if you can...

P.S. The poll I took ended a while ago. The winner was "stay classy and (something random)" by a whopping two votes and the runner up was "Those are lame..." with one vote. If you missed out you can leave a comment! If you hated all the options tell me what you think I should have used. Basically just leave a comment! I might actually reply (I will "I promise (and when I promise I never EVER break that promise. Ever." ~ Rapunzel from Tangled (This is how my mind works...))).  

Cat Ate Tissue

So this is going to be a rather random post. I have all these short stories and stuff that I think you might enjoy (I don't know maybe you won't). One of stories isn't really a story its more of a "this bothers me" which I guess happens a lot...

Story #1
I don't know if you know this or not but I have two cats. One day my cats were very hyper (this isn't that uncommon for them). I knew this because I could hear them running around upstairs. Eventually I decided I needed to go upstairs to my room, so up the stairs I went. As I stepped onto the very top of the stairs and into the hallway my cat comes running out of the room right next to the stairs and runs right into my leg. I almost fell over! My poor cat seemed dazed at first and then ran into the other room again.

Story #2
I ate a cricket! Okay...it wasn't a plain old cricket it was a chocolate covered cricket. It wasn't that large either, it was less than an inch. Basically it was a little cricket stuck in the middle of a block of chocolate. Why did I eat a cricket? It was for my AP Psychology class! I can't really remember what the point of it was. Probably something to do with culture and the norms of each country or something along that line.

Before I actually ate it you had to get the courage to actually eat it. I know what you're thinking. "How long could that take just put the cricket in your mouth and eat it! I doubt you could even see the cricket!" Well the problem was that a dude next to me had a cricket whose leg was sticking out of the chocolate. So that was a little disturbing. I hadn't (is that a word? It seems so strange...) opened my cricket yet so I was hoping that I would have that same problem. Well when I opened it the first thing I saw was a cricket staring at me. I'm not afraid of crickets or bugs but seeing it staring at me startled me and caused me to drop the cricket. There was a huge crack in my chocolate so you could see the entire body of the cricket. Rather unsettling. Then of course everybody else around the room ate there's so I ate mine and it just tasted like cheap chocolate. It wasn't that crunch, there was a slight crunch but nothing that is terribly unsettling. I was going to take a picture of the chocolate covered cricket but then I couldn't because it startled me.

This is the pin I got. It's rather large...

The whole thing came in this nifty little package along with a pin! So I now have a pin that says "I Ate A Bug Club!" That happened. Anyway, I looked at the package and it had the ingredients on it. I tried to take a picture but you couldn't read them so I will just list them for you now.

• Milk Chocolate
• Salt
• Vanillin
• Many Other ingredients I'm too lazy to type out
• One Oven-Roasted Cricket

Not only did I eat a cricket, I ate an oven-roasted cricket! That must mean I was healthier than those people that eat just a plain old raw cricket right? You know...like almonds. I just find it funny that they put that there was a cricket in it in the instructions (because for some reason I didn't know that was going to be there) and the fact that it was oven-roasted. I wonder if that's why it wasn't very crunchy...

Story #3

When you go to blow your nose you normally grab a tissue. Well, at least I hope you do instead of just using your sleeve. Recently I opened a new box of tissues. You know how a tissue is really two thin pieces stuck together? Well now there is three pieces stuck together. At first I thought I just magically pulled out another one that first time. Nope. They are all like that. It really bugs me because now the tissue is super thick. I don't know if that's good or not but its throwing me off. 

Well that's it for this week. Thanks for reading. Sorry if it was lame or weird or whatever other complaints you might have. Stay classy and don't be afraid to try something new you never know what you can learn from it!

P.S. The poll is going for another two weeks! You should vote before time runs out! 

Communication

The definition of "communication" according to Google is:

The imparting or exchanging of information or news. A letter or message containing such information or news.

Basically we use it to talk to people to let them know how we are feeling, what we want them to know, to comfort them, or whatever else our silly little brains decide we need to say. It's such a simple thing yet can cause so many problems and misunderstandings. 

I believe that most of the arguments people get into is from a misunderstanding of what one person says. Think about your most recent argument. If it was about a difference of opinions. What probably happened (this is just my observation of what normally happens. Don't start yelling at me if I'm wrong.) was you tried to convince them that your opinion is correct and there's is incorrect. As you were arguing you were trying to find a way to make that person understand what is going on in your head. I don't know about you but when I try to do this I can never express myself in the way the would best express what is actually going on in my head. It is extremely frustrating. 

As humans we have become more and more used to communication and have created short cuts to make our conversations take less time. For example:

1. They're = they are (are we too lazy to say two whole words and we just made one?!)
2. lol = laugh out loud (too lazy to type three words out...pretty soon we are going to be making up our own abbreviations like "iduwyta" Translation: I don't understand what you're talking about (well that seems to explain everything extremely well)
3. it = anything in the world
4. he = Steve (but only if you know who you're talking about)

I recently had a conversation that went like this:

"What channel is it?"
"What?"
"What channel is it?"
"I don't know what you're looking for."
"I don't know what's on."
"..."

What is this it you speak of? You don't know? Then why didn't you just ask "Do you know what's on?" I don't understand! It doesn't make any sense!

I have noticed a lot of experiences like this occurring. Sometimes my friends won't even say anything just make facial expressions and wave their hands randomly and I will translate the meaning. How? Good at deduction I guess (honestly though, I have no idea). Recently I have done it so much that now my friends will be eating, mumble something incomprehensible, and then point to me expecting me to translate. Half the time I'm not even paying attention to their conversation and am talking to somebody else when they start waving at me and expect me to know why. I'm sorry, I don't understand mime. If I knew what you were talking about I might be able to make a reasonable guess but with no context I will either say "I don't know" or I will make something up.

Also I realize that sometimes things happen and you are annoyed and don't want to talk about it more than you have to. However, if you tell somebody at a large table where many conversations are occurring and then expect everybody to know what you said you are greatly mistaken. If I ask you about it later and you get mad at me because you already told "everybody" think about when you told everybody. Was I actually there? Was I actually in your conversation? Why would I be asking if I already knew the answer? It doesn't make any sense to get mad at me (or anyone else for that matter) because they ask you a question they know the answer to. If you have answered the same question many times for the same person, fine, you get at least tell that person that you already told them and if they say "No, you didn't" obviously they have poor memory or are just being mean.

I hate the question "Do you know...?" Because never know if they are asking you because they want to know or if they know and want to know if you know and if you don't know they will tell you (did that make sense?) It's a double sided question and half the time you answer wrong and then they get mad at you.

The of course there is gossip. Don't do it. Just don't. It may seem fun but I guarantee you that the person that it is about will eventually hear it and then it will just create more chaos then there needs to be. If you hear something from your friends brother that heard it from this guy that was told by this guy on his team that his girlfriend was told by her cousin that this happened stop and think. Is the source really credible? Yes? Do you even know who that person is?! Probably not. Plus what happens through that long chain of conversation is a game of telephone. I seriously doubt that the original comment will be told the correct way. Everybody interprets facial expressions and voice inflections differently. Plus some people probably don't care what happens to the person the rumor is about and could make it sound more exciting so their friends think they are cooler than they actually are.

We use communication all the time. Heck. We even use it when talking to our pets and our pets use it to communicate to us. Do we understand it? No, not always. Communication is an amazing thing and really helps us to get along but it can also tear people apart. One little slip or failure to filter what you're saying can cause you to lose a friend. With communication comes the responsibility of understand what is being said. If what is being said is misunderstood what was the point of saying it? If I say something and you ask me to repeat it and then I say never mind I guarantee that it wasn't that important. If I don't repeat it it wasn't that important. If it's a joke you missed it and it's no longer funny. If I have something important to say I will tell you.

Well this has been a long post and I got side-tracked. I wasn't going to talk about half of that and didn't talk (write? whatever) about what I wanted to so I will probably make another post about this. Hopefully it will be more humorous and shorter. Oh, sorry if there are a ton of grammatical errors.
  
Don't forget to stay classy and don't cause problems that can be prevented simply by closing your mouth.

Poll Update

Okay so I had a poll for how I should end my blogs open for two weeks and I got one vote. So I'm going to try this again. I realize a lot of you probably didn't see it because I haven't posted anything in a while (I'm sorry!). I will have it open for a month this time. For the mean time I will end my blog posts the way the person that voted (thank you for voting by the way) wants and if I still don't really get an answer I will just stick with what they want. I don't think its fair to ignore that person's vote because nobody else voted so that is what is going to happen.

Stay classy and remember to eat ice cream, especially during the summer because it's hot. Just don't eat a whole container everyday that can't be healthy. Basically give yourself a treat...

Orthodontist

I hate the orthodontist. Now I know what you're thinking. "They aren't that bad." "It's their job! Give them a break!" "They give you a perfect smile which is both good looking and good for you." "Hate is a very strong word." Yeah well I have had to deal with them for nine years of my life. Did you read that right? Nine!!!! That's half my life.

For the past seven years I was nice to them. Okay not really but I put up with them and tried really hard not to hate them. This last year I gave up. I decided that it's too much effort to show that I don't actually hate them. Part of the reason I hate them is I have had braces for five or six (not really sure) of those nine years. Yeah. I'm a little annoyed.

One appointment was particularly strange because I was happy and then I was extremely annoyed because they told me I was going to get braces for the third time. Well before that I was trying not to laugh as they worked on my teeth because I thought of this video. Specifically the part about a fire because I could see and smell smoke as they scraped glue off of my teeth.

I have had pretty much everything you can think of. I had a retainer to make my mouth bigger because I had a small mouth (so if anybody says I have a big mouth I can blame my orthodontist which is nice). I had springs in my mouth that I would play with and sometimes they would get stuck so I couldn't close my mouth (that was really awkward in school because suddenly my mouth would be open longer than normal and I would be freaking out trying to fix the stupid spring). I have had so many canker sores that stuff that my be extremely painful for somebody else is normal  for me and doesn't bother me (one time the orthodontist said to use wax to fix it and I didn't understand why).

My third time having braces was probably the worst because it was in the very back of my mouth. The very back. The tooth that's farthest back in your upper mouth. Yeah. I had braces there which was the cause of bleeding and many canker sores back there (the bleeding was mainly because there was three centimeters of wire sticking into my cheek).

Before my third time I had full braces and then almost a year or two with a retainer. I got one of the invisalign retainers. When I got my third braces they took my retainer and cut it in half so I could still wear it at night.

I got a new retainer after the third time. I hate how they make the mold for them though. Using this gross pink goey stuff and put it in your mouth and then hold it there for at least a minute. Gross. Plus I have a huge gag reflex so half the time I'm gagging and can't breathe and they think I'm going to throw up, which I'm not I just can't breathe. So I'm gagging and can't breathe and they bring a trash can and I'm just thinking "That's not the problem! I can't breathe and a trash can isn't going to help me breathe."

Anyway after they give me my new retainer the lady tells me about cleaning it. I heard this when I got my first one but I didn't pay much attention to it. Then she asked me if I brushed my old retainer two times a day. I stared at her for a while and then just said no. Another lady in the background started laughing when she heard that and I don't know why. No, I'm sorry I'm not going to thoroughly clean my retainer twice a day I really don't care if it gets cloudy. I'm going to be wearing it at night so nobody is going to see if its cloudy unless I show them or they stare at my mouth while I sleep. Apparently I'm also supposed to clean it everyday in Efferdent or something like that but I'll probably do that once a month if I remember which I don't think I will.

That's my orthodontist experience I've also had one of the orthodontist say that I'm not as cool as another patient (it was a guy teasing the lady who was working on me that his patient was cooler than me so I guess it's not that mean but the lady didn't really defend me...). Maybe that helps you understand why I really don't like them.

Christmas Break

Oh dear. Once again I have neglected this blog. To be honest before Christmas break I had this plan to blog everyday even if the posts were only a couple of sentences or a funny quote I found. Then Christmas break arrived and I didn't want to do anything. For a while the morning consisted of video games (Super Paper Mario for the Wii to be precise) and the afternoon consisted of sitting in front of my computer and watching videos while I made bracelets for my friends. A majority of the time I wasn't sure what to watch and would sit in front of the computer and thing "Bored!" and then watch more videos. The main problem was that I really needed to read the forty pages of reading I was supposed to for AP Psychology. Don't worry I read it but most of it I read yesterday. In fact pretty much everything I should have done right away I did yesterday. Not the best planning right there but at least I had one really productive day.

Well I hope you had a fantastic Christmas and New Year. My was relaxing and just good until I got to the point of "I really need to do something productive but I really don't want to." I hope school goes well for those of us in school and work goes well for those that are working.

My first day of school was so slow. My schedule was: off, math, off, economics, off, psych. So I had multiple breaks which was probably good for my sanity but I didn't have anything to do which made it extremely slow. I have a quiz tomorrow which I'm kinda bummed about but I'm not too worried about it.

Sorry if this is a really random post. I'm waiting for the parking lot to be less crowded so I can leave. I refuse to leave when everybody else does because there is a very good chance that I will get hit and I don't really want to get hit. So I'm waiting and that is why this post is really random. My bad.

Well anyway I think I can leave now so have a great rest of your day!
~Scooby

The Fort

Talk about ridiculous prices, creepy old guy, food, dressing up, Waugh and gift, and singing ladies plus magically appearing food and sneaky waiters and waitress saying thank you very much to every one and thanking us. Think of singing "please don't eat me" from dragon song in avpm while eating

So as I said in my previous post I had a Christmas party on the first with some family friends. Every year we get together and we trade off going to each others house. This year it was our friend who is really big into Christmas. When I was younger she would always buy us each at least 10 presents. She still does now just not as much because we got rid of the gift exchange part. Anyway this time she decided to take us to The Fort. The Fort is a very fancy restaurant where two people can easily spend over $100.

This be the place.

 So before we actually left I asked my parents if I needed to dress up. The response: "YES!" I couldn't even wear jeans! That's my life! If you don't know me I hate dressing up. It's a pain in the butt. My normal outfit consists of jeans, a T-shirt, and a hoodie (socks and tennis shoes as well). My hair is also up in a pony tail and no make-up is on my face. When I'm home and know I'm not going anywhere I will where sweats instead of jeans and slippers. Anyway they said I could wear some black pants I had but I really didn't want to because they always have cat hair on them and aren't that comfortable and I'm all about comfort. So I decided if I had to go to this place and dress up it was all or nothing. Since my parents wouldn't let me wear sweats I went with a dress. I even straightened my hair and put on some makeup (I used my friend's boots that I borrowed at one point and haven't given back yet....oops). I brought clothes to change into for when we went back to her house because I refused to stay in that outfit longer than I had to.

The food:
Well once everything started we got drinks (I got water because after looking at the prices of their appetizers I was afraid their drinks would be really expensive too). We got an appetizer that had three different kinds of sausage on it. The one I had tasted like chili to me. Kinda weird. Then we got our main meals (I got filet mignon) it was very good and like $40 dollars. Ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. The first time I got the menu I wanted to know if they had a kids meal because I would be fine with that. Well let's just say my father said no to that too. The food was really good though. I'm not a big steak fan but that was good stuff. I would eat that again. My father got a full rack of ribs and I kid you not the stack was as big as my head. There was a lot of food and that was good too. The vegetables were also really good which impressed me because normally I will pass on them at a restaurant.



The Atmosphere:
There was this Mountain Man there that would sneak up behind you and just stand there until you turned around. The only way you would know that he was there is when the people around you would tell you. At first I didn't think he was a mountain man...I thought he was a strange Santa Claus because he had the beard and everything except for the clothes. I was confused. He was rather creepy.



There was also this group of four ladies that would go around singing Christmas carols at each table. That was really cool. They were good too.

The Service:
The service was very good (probably part of the reason it is so expensive there). You got an appetizer menu and once you were done eating your appetizer they would take your dirty dishes and give you new dishes for the rest of your meal. I was really confused at first because they took my knife and fork. When we got our main meal they gave us a different knife that seemed rather sharp to me. You would also be eating and then suddenly see that more food arrived and be really confused as to how it got there and if a waiter/waitress put it there. It was magical. Like the tables at Hogwarts. Our waitress also kept saying "Thank you very much" after we ordered. It seemed strange to me because you are the one making us the food we should be thanking you (granted it isn't free by any means but your still giving us good food). Plus it was weird because she said it to every person and it got really repetive.

Other:
After we were done eating we were given this pieces of paper. Some of the said that if you went to their store you would get a gift. So we went to the shop and got a block of fancy chocolate. That was nice. On the paper the word "Waugh" was written which I didn't really understand why it was there. Maybe that is somebody's name. When I googled it there was an author with that last name and a Waugh school district and a bunch of other people.

The prices were ridiculous in my mind. You didn't get any more food than you would in any other place yet you spent at least $40 unless you were a vegetarian. If you're a vegetarian and you get their vegetarian dish that is $20. Vegetarians for the win!

While I was eating my meal I got a song stuck in my head. It is a Starkid song called "The Dragon Song." Before I share the video you should know that the only part of the song that was stuck in my head was when he sings "So please don't eat me." I was singing "please don't eat me" in my head while I was eating my meat. Sigh. How does that even happen? On the video I would go to 5:45 if you don't want to watch that much and actually want to know what I'm talking about. If you want to watch the whole video go for it!

That was my adventure at The Fort. Sorry this post was rather long.
~Scooby